FROM AN INSULATED TRIBE

Press, 27 January 1979, Page 17

FROM AN INSULATED TRIBE

Tea at Gunter's. By Pamela Haines. Penguin. 229 pp. $2.95. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding and An Integrated Man. By Julia Strachey. Penguin. 263 pp. $3.70. (Reviewed by Heather McPherson) These two reprints have a nostalgic appeal. They are set in England’s thirties and forties where an upper middle class and its provincial aspirants are concerned mainly with relationships. Both writers describe their characters sensitively and accurately within the customs of a tribe insulated from basic survival necessities, barely aware that politics could impinge on its tea and ices. “Tea at Gunter’s” concerns a mother who, having lost status with her marriage, determines her daughter should reclaim it. The pre-feminist heroine is not unattractive even when circumstances rather that, insight break the imposed pattern.

‘-‘Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is set in a twittilv frivolous wedding bustle yet the skilful prose adds a painterly dimension. The author's intentions probably included lots of light, colour, movement and a hint of shadow in the corners. A controlled, satirical hand over the characters’ inconsequence ma’ es an enjoyable period piece,. “An Integrated Man” introduces within its story the topical aesthetic argument of socially privileged art

versus accessible art The protagonist Ned Moon, who is about to open a private boys’ school, courts and at the last moment rejects his friend’s wife The woman is the proponent of vox populi art. Her disappointed pain, described as that of an animal caught in a trap, is an unequal loading of the scales. Julia Strachey's postBloomsbury intelligence and wit trace the hollow triumph of tradition and male bonding with flair.